Animals, such as, for example, poultry, red meat animals of all kinds, fish and crustaceans are killed and their carcasses are processed to produce food products for human consumption. Typically, the processing of such animals includes evisceration, which may contaminate the edible portion of the animal with unwanted bacteria, which may multiply depending upon the sanitary conditions employed in further processing steps. Bacterial contamination of the edible portions of the animal may cause spoilage of the edible portions and illness of consumers of the contaminated edible portions.
Treatment processes which involve contacting animal carcasses with aqueous solutions containing alkali metal phosphates and which are effective in reducing bacterial contamination and/or retarding bacterial growth without substantial detriment to the organoleptic properties of the carcasses are known, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,283,073. However, these processes tend to introduce relatively high amounts of phosphate compounds into treatment waste streams, which may be undesirable from an environmental perspective.
What is needed in the art is a method for treating animal carcasses which is effective in reducing bacterial contamination and/or retarding bacterial growth without substantial detriment to the organoleptic properties of the carcasses and which does not produce a waste stream containing a high amount of phosphate compounds.